Category: Movie Review

Written and directed by Atom Egoyan, the movie Ararat tells the story of a young man whose life was changed while making a film about the Armenian genocide in Turkey during 1915. Over one million Armenians were brutally slaughtered by the Turks on the pretense that they were a threat to national security. The film recounts these events as a the young man Raffi (David Alpay) is being interrogated by a customs officer (Christopher Plummer) on his return from Turkey were he has just visited his ancestral homeland.

I really want to like this film (I have now seen it three times), but I can only give it a fair rating (6 out of 10). I can’t place my finger on exactly what I think is wrong with the movie. Overall the acting is good (the film also stars Eric Bogosian, Bruce Greenwood, Arsinee Khanjian and Elias Koteas). Alpay and Plummer stand out in their roles, and I particularly liked Plummer’s more understated acting in this film as opposed to some of his other recent work. I guess I have to agree with a view more professional reviewers quoted below.

One reviewer (Harvey S. Karten, Compuserve) has stated that Ararat is “A difficult but worthy film that bites off more than it can chew by linking the massacre of Armenians in 1915 with some difficult relationships in the present.” Jonathan Foreman of the New York Post wrote, “The Armenian genocide deserves a more engaged and honest treatment,” and Kirk Honeycutt of the Hollywood Reporter added, “Canada’s Atom Egoyan gets in touch with his Armenian roots in the highly ambitious “Ararat,” an intricately scripted, beautifully photographed meditation on redemption and reconciliation. But while obviously an extremely personal work, it remains inextricably stuck in an emotionally unavailable rut.”

There is one great scene in the film however that deserves further mention. In it Raffi confronts Ali (Elias Koteas), a half-Turkish actor who has just completed playing his role as Jevdet Bey, a rather heinous character in the Turkish army (the following quote is courtesy of the Internet Movie Database:

Raffi: Were you serious about what you told him?
Ali: What?
Raffi: That you don’t think it happened?
Ali: What, the genocide?
Raffi: Yeah.
Ali: Are you gonna shoot me or something? Look, I never heard about any of this stuff when I was growing up. You know? I did some research for the part. From what I read there were deportations and lots of people died. Armenians and Turks. It was World War 1.
Raffi: But Turkey wasn’t at war with the Armenians. I mean, just like Germany wasn’t at war with the Jews. They were citizens. They were expecting to be protected. That scene you just shot was based on an eyewitness account. Your character Jevdet Bey, the only reason they put him in Van was to carry out the complete extermination of the Armenian population in Van. There were telegrams, there were communicators…
Ali: Look I’m not saying that something didn’t happen.
Raffi: Something…
Ali: Look, I was born here. So were you right?
Raffi: Yeah.
Ali: This is a new country. So let’s just drop the f**king history and get on with it. No one’s gonna wreck your home. No one’s gonna destroy you family. Hmm? So let’s go inside and uncork this thing and celebrate. Hmm?
Raffi: Do you know what Adolf Hitler told his military commanders to convince them that his plan would work? “Who remembers the extermination of the Armenians?”
Ali: And nobody did. Nobody does.

It is a shame that more people are not aware of this sad chapter in human history. In fact, the Turkish government still denies after more than 90 years that the genocide ever took place. Perhaps the best reason to view this film is to acquaint one’s self with these events.

The film is rated R for violence, sexuality/nudity and language and is probably inappropriate for children under 15 given the graphic violence that is both shown and implied.

Written and directed by Thomas McCarthy (the man who brought us the excellent “The Station Agent”), “The Visitor is another film about how we sometimes form community with people who were previously strangers to us. Richard Jenkins does a great job as the lead character Walter Vale in the film, playing a professor who has been going through the motions of life since his wife’s death several years previously. On a trip to an academic conference in NYC, he encounters the illegal immigrants Tarek (Haaz Sleiman) and Tarek’s girlfriend Zainab (Danai Gurira), who have been squatting in his little-used apartment there.

Tarek and Zainab help to reinvigorate Vale. This is especially true of Tarek, who begins to give Vale drumming lessons. After Tarek’s arrest, Vale becomes even more involved in the lives of these two immigrants and ultimately meets Tarek’s mother, played beautifully by Hiam Abbass. In fact, all four primary actors perform admirably.

Though one can see the ending coming from a mile away, the journey there is a very good one, and I recommend this film, giving it 8 out of 10 stars.

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The Prodigal Son

And Jesus said, A certain man had two sons: And the younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted his substance with riotous living.

And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land; and he began to be in want. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine. And he would fain have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat: and no man gave unto him. And when he came to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have bread enough and to spare, and I perish with hunger! I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, And am no more worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.

And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son. But the father said to his servants, Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring hither the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found. And they began to be merry.